Thousands of activities commemorating 100 years of the women’s vote are happening around the country this week: https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Centennial-Update-August-16-22.pdf

Articles galore are coming out about the importance of the centennial and the power of the vote. While young voters are severely underrepresented in the vote, there is hope that the centennial is building awareness.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/18/5-first-time-women-voters-on-the-19th-amendment-and-2020-election.html Here are the highlights of NM’s events Other suffrage week events and election information: https://www.cabq.gov/culturalservices/the-womens-vote

Sunday, Aug 23: Women’s Vote Centennial Car Parade in Santa Fe, 2-3 pm, https://www.lwvsfc.org/

Meet in PERA parking lot across from Capitol before 2 pm sharp. Proceed north on Santa Fe Trail toward Plaza. Take right on San Francisco, left on Cathedral Place, left on Palace, right on Washington St, left on Marcy, passing City Hall, left at Federal Court Building, left on Grant Ave passing Santa Fe County Headquarters on right (Grant and Catron) and Nina Otero-Warren’s House at 135 Grant. Honk twice and then wend your way back home.

Look for LWVCNM’s ad in the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday, August 23, highlighting the centennial, League goals, values, and actions that support suffrage over the past 100 years, including voter guides and now Vote 411.

***

Watch NM’s Women’s Equality Day Celebration, Wednesday, August 26, 4-7 pm

Non-partisan virtual celebration of the women’s vote centennial/ratification of the 19^th Amendment.

Links to Join the Event:

https://youtu.be/sA4mqaSChFo

https://www.facebook.com/events/2433123916980590/

The celebration will create a tapestry of women standing together, showing the strength and power of their vote. An 18-year-old woman from each of NM’s counties will speak the first year they are permitted to vote along with a woman from each of the 50 states and D.C. briefly stating why they vote. One Native American, one Black, one Hispanic, and one White woman will share their history about the struggle to vote accompanied by songs from those cultures. Other performance pieces will honor the women’s vote. The program includes brief remarks by some NM women leaders--including Governor Lujan Grisham, SOS Toulouse Oliver, Supreme Court Justice Nakamura, Congresswomen Deb Haaland and Xochitl Torres Small. A new program that will help survivors of domestic violence access low interest loans will be launched. Martha Burk will speak on Economics, Women and the Power of Voting, and Olivia Friedman will read excerpts from her book 2020 and Beyond, The Next Steps for Women.

Learn much more about NM’s role in the suffrage movement and more about the struggle for voting rights through https://www.newmexicopbs.org/new-mexico-and-the-vote-podcast/ four episodes. https://nmhumanities.org/women2020/

https://youtu.be/OJ2d8eI5LWU

https://libguides.unm.edu/c.php?g=956352, https://www.nps.gov/articles/new-mexico-and-the-19th-amendment.htm.

Read LWVCNM’s August issue of the Voter download here

. This terrific issue focuses on the history of the suffrage in New Mexico. Articles include a timeline from 1848 to final ratification Aug 26, 1920, Hispanic women and the fight for the vote, Harriet Tubman and the voting rights movement.

(((((((((((((

As we celebrate the centennial of both the 19th Amendment and the League of Women Voters, I want to thank each of you for being dedicated to using fair, accessible, and inclusive elections as the best way to advance the principles of democracy. Today, we pay homage to the generations of suffragists who saw that the vote was the best avenue for electing officials who supported their policy priorities and enacting laws to protect them. Through decades of well-organized letter writing campaigns, speeches, marches, protests, hunger strikes, and quiet work behind the scenes studying issues and coming to consensus on principles in the public interest, we have raised awareness of the power of the vote.

The 19th Amendment changed our country and continues to do so. As we deal with the health, education, economic, and political disparities exacerbated by the pandemic, what once were considered women’s issues are front and center as American issues. Across racial, ethnic, age, socio-economic, and other discussions, women are making sure that local, state and federal laws are protecting the most vulnerable.

The women’s vote was the greatest expansion of democracy in our nation’s history. It continues to expand our awareness that our democracy is made of many kinds of people living in many different conditions. We must expand the vote and the diversity of voices at the table if we are to achieve a government of, for, and by the people. We want everyone to prosper in terms of quality of life, health, education, professional opportunities, and working conditions. The more voices we have, the more chances those voices will change our nation for the better.

Let’s get out the vote in recognition of those who lived and died for that right. Let’s promote Vote411.org, which will have the most inclusive voting guide NM has ever seen. Most importantly, let’s make sure that everyone who is eligible to vote is registered and able to vote.

This is our most important moment. Together, we can make amazing progress in the long march for an inclusive democracy.

Thanks again! Meredith Machen, LWVNM Past President; Education, Immigration, and History Chair

^^^

Send me a request and I will send you links to scores of articles and podcasts. I’m excited about what’s being done around the state and country, and I think consciousness in America is changing as a result of looking at our current conditions in the light of history.

“My ___ Was a Suffragist “ (Most of Americans whose families have been here for decades are descendants)

One hundred years after the 19th Amendment, suffragists’ descendants consider how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/style/woman-suffrage-movement-descend.html?smid=em-share

“Votes for women was a demand that was both radical and all-American. And the nearly century-long history of how women won that right is as colorful and kaleidoscopic as it is complicated and almost impossible to sum up.”

https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/2AKyZX3r7pZoJA